Media training 101 for small businesses

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Great news: you just scored a big press interview to promote your business. The story will expose your brand to the perfect new audience and drive meaningful traffic to your website. So…don't blow it. Yes, just as quickly as the excitement for the opportunity arrived, the realization that you now have to do an interview sets in. I get it—press interviews can absolutely be intimidating. The resulting coverage represents a significant opportunity to acquire new customers, drive sales, or raise awareness, and you want to be sure to represent your brand well and really compel the audience to check out your company. On top of that, you have to contend with adrenaline and nerves in the moment. You may be thinking, "So many other business owners are so polished and articulate in their interviews. How am I going to pull that off?" Deep breath. A successful interview is usually the result of good media training: preparation and practice in advance of an interview. I've tr...
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How Zapier's apps make your workflows even more powerful

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With Zapier, you can connect thousands of apps to create customized workflows. But when you go to connect your favorite apps, you might run into a few things those apps can't do. That's why we built a collection of our own tools that let you customize your workflows even more. There are tools for sending out email or SMS notifications, parsing and creating RSS feeds, and manipulating incoming data so that it works better in the app you're sending it to.

These apps do all kinds of things and are hard to summarize, so let's explore some examples.

Email by Zapier

Email isn't dead, despite predictions to the contrary. And it doesn't seem like it's going to die anytime soon. Email by Zapier is a tool you can use to make your inbox even more powerful. Using this you can set up automated emails from your favorite apps, keeping you up-to-date.

For example, with a Zap—our word for Zapier's automated workflows—you can instantly see survey and form responses in your inbox.

You can create your own email newsletters for any RSS feed or Twitter account, helping you keep informed without the need to check those websites a million times a day. (We're not saying this is the cure for social media addiction, but it might be).

But Email by Zapier doesn't just send you emails—you can also use it to send information to other apps. For example, you can forward emails to a custom Zapier email address to upload attachments to cloud storage services.

You could also forward emails to a particular address in order to share them with your team on Slack.

You could even set up email notifications for new jobs here at Zapier, assuming you'd like to work with me (I personally wouldn't like to work with me but whatever makes you happy).

These are just a few ideas, check out our Email by Zapier integration to learn more.

Note: With Email by Zapier, you can create a custom email address that can take information from an app and send it to another one with an email. It's important to note that any emails sent with Email by Zapier will be from a no-reply email address and you won't have an email inbox. If you want readers to reply to you from these emails or be able to manage them from an inbox, you'll need to use a transactional email app. You can learn more about Email by Zapier in our help documentation.

SMS by Zapier

SMS may be old fashioned, but it works. Notably, it works even if you don't have an internet connection. With Zapier you can get SMS notifications with information from the apps you use every day, keeping you connected when 5G, 4G, and even 3G signals are scarce.

You can, for example, set up a workflow that sends you a text message every time a potential customer fills out a lead form. This allows you to call back quickly, even when you're away from your computer.

And there are plenty of other uses. You can get weather updates by SMS every day or just find out if it's going to rain.

You can also use this to bring back SMS notifications from apps that dropped them. Google used to offer SMS alerts for Google Calendar events, for example. With this Zap, you can recreate that feature yourself.

Or you could use Twitter like it's 2007. Set this up and you'll get a text message whenever a particular user sends a tweet.

These are just a few ideas. Check out our SMS by Zapier integration to learn more.

RSS by Zapier

RSS feeds are a great way to keep up with your favorite websites. Combined with RSS by Zapier, these feeds can be used to push information to thousands of apps, all without you having to do much of anything.

These Zaps let you automatically post articles from your blog or website to social networks.

Or, if there's a website offering notifications you need to keep track of, you can set up your own SMS notifications.

You can even save every article from a website into a bookmark app like Pocket, which is perfect if there's a writer whose articles you never want to miss.

RSS by Zapier also works the other way, allowing you to create RSS feeds using content from thousands of apps. Make an RSS feed of social media content, which lets you keep track of it without creating an account.

These are just a few ideas. Check out our RSS by Zapier integration to learn more.

Related: Find the RSS feed URL for almost any website

Schedule by Zapier

Your Zaps, for the most part, kick off when something happens in an app, but sometimes you might want to schedule your workflow to run at a very specific time. That's what Schedule by Zapier is for. This simple app lets you pick a time for your Zap to run, allowing you to make things happen on a routine basis. You could, for example, send an email at the same time every day or every week.

If you manage projects using a to-do app like Trello and have a recurring task you need to be reminded of, you can set up an automation that will create cards regularly.

Or you could set something up for the fun of it. Maybe schedule a random GIF to show up in Slack once a day?

These are just a few examples. Check out our Schedule by Zapier integration to learn more.

But wait, there's more

We've outlined some of the most popular built-in apps above, but it's really just the beginning.

  • Retrograde by Zapier lets you know when Mercury is in retrograde, and is honestly probably the only app you need.
  • Webhooks by Zapier is an advanced tool for building automations that connect to websites or apps that support webhooks. Read more about Webhooks by Zapier if you're interested.
  • IMAP by Zapier and SMTP by Zapier let you connect Zapier to the most common email protocols, allowing you to build automations regardless of where your email is hosted.
  • Email Parser by Zapier can extract the key information from any email you send to a custom email address.
  • Delay by Zapier can be inserted in the middle of a multi-step Zap. Choose how much time you'd like to insert between steps.
  • Storage by Zapier lets you store and retrieve small bits of data and can be a powerful tool while building complex workflows.
  • Digest by Zapier can collect bits of information from multiple workflows and combine them in a summary you can send to other apps.
  • Push by Zapier is a Chrome extension you can use to launch workflows from your browser.
  • URL Shortener by Zapier allows you to shorten any URL before sharing it.

Want to learn more? Check out all of the Zapier-built tools.



from The Zapier Blog https://ift.tt/2wnlLE9

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